The Most Disturbing Moments From The Midnight Club Ranked
"The Midnight Club" manages to terrify and induce tears. While supplying plenty of frights, the show helmed by Mike Flanagan explores life, death, and how to pick up the pieces after unimaginable loss. The story follows Ilonka (Iman Benson) as she goes into care at Brightcliffe Hospice. Suffering from thyroid cancer, she doesn't have many days left until she reaches the end of the road. Within the facility's hallowed halls, she meets a group of teens exactly like herself. Everyone has their own story and their own pain. Together, they seem to find comfort in shared experiences and tell stories to distract themselves from reality.
As they grow closer, a sinister force appears to draw closer to each of them. Some see visions of an old woman; others witness a long shadow creeping along the baseboards to their rooms, and a few of them don't see anything at all. What they think they see is not always what's actually there. Alongside the raw emotion of the show, Flanagan and his team pull from the very disturbing aspects of the original 1994 novel penned by Christopher Pike. Below, we've corralled the season's most disturbing moments, from the tales the kids weave to the unseen things that go bump in the night. Pull up a seat, and let's get to it.
Lots of spoilers ahead for Season 1 of "The Midnight Club."
9. The woman is hungry
Anya's (Ruth Codd) tragic death takes a heavy toll on Dr. Stanton (Heather Langenkamp). After a Midnight Club meeting, Ilonka wanders through the halls toward Stanton's office before she's interrupted by Stanton herself. Stanton's almost in tears and neglects to close her office door behind her, leaving an opportunity for Ilonka to eavesdrop. Ilonka overhears Stanton claim that another teen has completely recovered and will be going home very soon. It's surely a case of a misdiagnosis, which is rare, she points out, but it happens every now and then.
Once back in her room, Ilonka hallucinates a gnarly, frizzy-haired old woman climbing onto her bed, gasping that she's "hungry." Ilonka freaks out and dashes into the bathroom. There, she sees a vision of an older gentleman, dapper in his suit and tie, reflecting in the mirror. He calls her "darling" and Ilonka freezes. Ever since she arrived, she's been seeing ghosts, and they don't make much sense. Whatever they may be 一 signs of the afterlife or visions of the future 一 they're pure nightmare fuel.
8. The Paragon
Strange woman in the woods Shasta (Samantha Sloyan) calls Ilonka a bright girl, and she's not wrong. Ilonka is intuitive and smart, always looking far below the surface for answers. She might be dying, but she won't go down without a fight. Upon discovering a cryptic book marked with an hourglass in the library, she delves further into research about a supposed cult that once inhabited the estate.
The book in question happens to be the journal of a young girl named Athena. In the book, Athena's mother Regina Ballard, most famously known as Aceso, founds a new agey group back in the '40s as a way to discover healing powers in nature. Things quickly go south, however, and the group morphs into a cult centered around peculiar rituals and blood sacrifices. Athena feels like something is very off with her mother and her followers, so she escapes and calls the police. Law enforcement arrive moments after Aceso convinces the cult members to drink poison in a mass suicide. Their bodies are strewn around the hidden basement, and it's a downright gruesome sight.
7. Dusty brought to justice
The Midnight Club meets most nights in the wee hours to make ghosts. Their stories distract from reality and give depth to each character. Kevin's (Igby Rigney) story finally reaches its epic conclusion at the end of the season, and he's done his best to tease the others about how it ends. If they wanted to know what happens, they had to live another day.
In the season finale of "The Midnight Club," Kevin wraps up the story by having Dusty, a serial killer, reveal that in addition to himself, his grandfather and his mother are both killers. His girlfriend Sheila has been hot on the trail to find her best friend's murderer, so it's only a matter of time until she figures it out herself. While spilling his guts to her, he fights the urge to bludgeon her to death with a claw hammer when his demon-possessed mother crawls on the ceiling into the room.
Dusty manages to land a fatal blow to his mother's head. "I love you," she gasps, the curse temporarily broken. A swirling, neon green cloud emerges from her lungs and slips into Dusty's mouth. He is now possessed with the same entity that once plagued his mother, and he keeps fighting as best he can. He then pleads with Sheila to put him down, but she cares too deeply to kill him. Instead, she delivers a whack that incapacitates him until the cops show up. By reason of insanity, Dusty is sentenced to a padded room for the rest of his life. It's a chilling ending for a chilling tale.
6. Ritual for Anya
Ilonka always has the best of intentions. Even if things don't necessarily work out how she hopes, her heart is in the right place. Through her research, she comes across a ritual that will allegedly heal someone of whatever ailment they have. It requires a sacrifice, of course, and in this case, it must be personal effects cast into a fire, sealing the incantation. Surrounded by her friends, Anya is resigned, yet hopeful that perhaps it may work.
As the ritual progresses, Anya falls into a deep slumber and dreams of her afterlife. The audience is none the wiser as the images initially play like a flash forward. In this version of her life, she is listless. She works as a cashier at a local supermarket, attends group therapy, and yearns for her dead friends. But her world starts to deteriorate and every story that was once told in the Midnight Club bleeds into her dreams. A girl with pale eyes shows up, a ballerina slices her wrists, and an infant in ink transforms into a skeleton.
Anya is also hearing voices through radio static. As it turns out, the ritual didn't work, and Anya is now terribly ill in the recovery wing. Her friends speak to her through the intercom system. It's as disturbing and emotional as it sounds.
5. Julia Jayne
Shasta is a weird one. She's just too nice and too willing to help Ilonka with her problems. Often found in the woods, she runs a company called Good Humor which specializes in natural healing. She's knowledgeable and kind toward Ilonka, but something dark lurks under the surface. Once it's revealed that she is actually Julia Jayne, a former Brightcliffe Hospice patient who was completely healed, she suggests to Ilonka that she let her into the facility and down to the basement. Julia is eager to return to where she claims the house harbors a special energy.
As smart as she is, Ilonka doesn't see the signs that something truly is amiss with Julia. She plots to bring Julia to the basement after an upcoming Midnight Club session. No one else can know, least of all Dr. Stanton, with whom Julia has quite a history. During the ritual, which is far different than what Ilonka attempts with Anya, Julia's comrades froth at the mouth and fall to the ground, convulsing and writhing. The ritual is not one of healing after all; it's another mass suicide. Fortunately, Dr. Stanton shows up before Ilonka can drink from her cup. It can't get any more disturbing than a cult-y mass suicide.
4. Anya's overdose
Anya has a tough go of it. When someone enters their last phase in life, they start seeing what's been described as a long shadow. It follows you around, first appearing in your peripheral vision and growing until eventually it's all you see. It changes shapes, too, often emerging out of dark corners and taking on the form of a human body. Anya's pain gets worse, so she pops more pills than she probably should.
With the long shadow closing in, it appears in her room as a fully formed being. Its clutches reach out to her. It's almost as if it's calling her to the afterlife before her time. On one particular occasion, Anya takes an even higher dose of morphine and tumbles into a reality-distorting hallucination. The long shadow appears in a more terrifying form than she'd previously encountered, but she can't quite tell if it's an actual shadow or the effect of the drug.
Before long, Anya has suffered a full-on overdose. She teeters just on the abyss overlooking her deathbed, and fortunately her friends pull her back from the ledge. She's safe for now, but it's at the cost of more emotional trauma.
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
3. A boy named Dusty
Leading up to the thrilling conclusion of his story, Kevin introduces his tale about the "perfectly crazy" boy named Dusty with an air of mystery. Straight away, he gets right to the gritty details: Dusty is a disturbed boy who breaks into homes and clubs people to death with a claw hammer. He then proceeds to roll their bodies in plastic, drive out into the woods, and bury them 6-feet deep. It's real Jeffrey Dahmer energy.
The body count is unknown, but it's nearly a dozen victims at least. Dusty's not only a certified weirdo in school, but he hears voices. Demonic voices screech inside his skull, telling him to do the most wicked things imaginable. One of those voices is his mother, and as we learn, it's possibly an inherited trait or nothing more than a demon. After each of his murderous escapades, his victims manifest in his room at night screaming silent screams. Their gushing wounds are still visible remnants of their devastating last moments alive. It's an image the audience won't soon forget.
2. The two Danas
Burrowed inside each character's story is a nugget of truth. In the case of Anya, she spins a yarn about a young girl desperate for a life of freedom. She works hard as a rising ballerina, but she yearns to have a normal existence like her peers. She's always practicing and putting in the hours, and it begins to weigh heavily on her shoulders.
When she makes a desperate wish, she's given the chance to live a dual life with the inception of a second Dana. That way, she can experience everything everywhere all at once, so to speak. But it doesn't go quite as planned. Dana Two is a fun lovin' gal and soon turns to drugs to get her fix, and it leads to Dana One blowing a big audition. To put an end to it all, Dana must kill herself. She initially slits her wrists and then steals a gun to put a bullet in Dana Two's brain.
They each devise the same exact plan, and the result is even more tragic. It's left unclear which Dana survives, although there's the suggestion it is actually Dana Two. Regardless, Dana loses her leg in the process, much like Anya in real life. It's not just disturbing; it's soul-crushing.
1. The Hitchhikers
Natsuki (Aya Furukawa) doesn't let too many people in. She hides behind a wall to keep others at a distance, but she wants to try with Amesh (Sauriyan Sapkota). Sitting in front of a roaring fireplace, Natsuki shares a story about a girl named Teresa who wants to go out for a drive. She just wants to get away and go. It's time. During the night, she comes across two hitchhikers — a man and a woman — heading to a gig in town.
They're nice enough, but something feels a little off. The man blabbers on and on about how he allegedly killed a gas station attendant 一 or "maybe I'm just full of s***," he quips. Eventually, Teresa complains about a rank odor and starts coughing. She also begins seeing the same person on the side of the road walking, and it appears they're only driving around in circles. The person walking quickly devolves into a zombie of sorts. Teresa's passengers change, too — their faces turn green and their eyes go pale.
Pulling into the gas station again, the woman suggests Teresa go open the nearby garage. Teresa does, and she finds herself unconscious in the front seat of a car. The garage brims with exhaust. It's been a metaphor for suicide this entire time. The two hitchhikers fade into two versions of herself, and they talk her out of ending her life. Natsuki's story is the most disturbing in how true-to-life and downright haunting it really is.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255).